1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) device and, more particularly, to an LCD device in which a display defect resulting from a texture defect occurring around a side of a pixel electrode due to column spacer movement is reduced or effectively prevented, and a method of fabricating the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
An “LCD” device is widely used in products such as cellular phones, computer monitors, televisions, etc., and is increasingly in demand due to its advantages of compact size, light weight, and low power consumption.
A typical LCD device comprises a color filter substrate and a thin film transistor (“TFT”) substrate with a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The color filter substrate comprises a common electrode and a color filter, and the TFT substrate comprises a TFT and a pixel electrode. Different electric potentials are applied to the pixel electrode and the common electrode to change the orientation of liquid crystal molecules, so that the transmissivity of light is adjusted to display an image.
Recently, a vertically aligned (“VA”) mode LCD device (in which a longitudinal or major axis of a liquid crystal molecule is perpendicular to upper and lower substrates when an electric field is not applied thereto) has attracted attention due the high contrast ratio and wide viewing angle capabilities thereof.
Presently, there are two known methods of obtaining a wide viewing angle in VA mode LCD device. The first method is to form an incision pattern in an electrode, while the second method is to form a projection in an electrode. Both of the two methods form a fringe field to equally distribute the tilt direction of liquid crystal molecules in four directions to thereby obtain the wide viewing angle. A patterned vertically aligned (“PVA”) mode for forming the incision pattern is also used as a wide viewing angle technique in lieu of an in-plane switching (“IPS”) mode.
The PVA mode has a relatively fast response characteristic as compared to a twisted nematic (“TN”) mode, since there is no torsion in movement of the liquid crystal molecule and the liquid crystal molecule is splayed in a perpendicular direction to an electric field, or moves only by bending elasticity.
However, if an upper substrate including a black matrix and a lower substrate including a TFT are misaligned or moved by an external physical shock or impact, the black matrix is also moved. In this instance, a texture control defect may occur due to light leakage, thereby leading to a display defect in the LCD device. In particular, if a column spacer for maintaining a cell gap between the upper substrate and the lower substrate is formed at a region adjacent to a blue pixel region and the column spacer is shocked or impacted, the texture defect occurs because light leakage is more increased than at other regions due to a movement of the column spacer in the direction of a pixel region. Even where the column spacer is restored to its original position, the text defect of the blue pixel region is still not cured. As a result, the defect may result in a deterioration of the brightness of the display, and may also result in a horizontal line defect and a yellowish phenomenon.